Last night the Vegan Black Metal Chef sat down with Cameron Collins and me to record episode #49 of our Punk Rock Pariah podcast / radio show and talk about how he became a vegan black metal chef and what it was like growing up amidst the metal scene in Tampa, FL. We also talked about vegan cooking and his amazing new cookbook, The Seitanic Spellbook. Give it a listen now!

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– The 90s vs today
– The effects of social media
– Paul Bearer jokes
– My journey as a speaker
– The idea of emotional music as a term/concept
– the work One Hundred For Haiti does for the people of Haiti

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Vermont and Northeast friends: I had such an incredible time this weekend with two back to back spoken word events December 1st and 2nd on “Changing the World Without Having a Clue” here in Vermont. Thanks to Spencer and Renee Crispe and Matt Kimball for all the work they did putting these events together, and especially for branching out and bringing in audience members from the widest range in the local communities. And for the people who came from other states to be here at the shows this weekend.

December 1st in Brattleboro Vermont at Headroom Stages
December 2nd in Burlington Vermont at the Blackbox Theater

The idea for these events is always the same: Come share ideas, speak out, be clueless, and let’s change the world.

On a day when I am trying to reconcile the morality, compassion, and ethics of not eating or killing animals with the idea that exotic trophy hunters should be effectively hunted and turned into trophies themselves…

I find solace in the work being done by Giacomo Xjoshx Giorgi who as director, along with the facebookless and brilliant Raffa as Assistant Director, are in South Africa this week filming interviews for On The Wild Side: a documentary film in production now around the planet that explores the anti-hunting movement worldwide.

This film will support and uphold the anti-hunting movement on a wide range of fronts. It will be edited this winter. I’m narrating the film and producing as well and couldn’t be more honored to be working with Giacomo and Raffa on it especially during a time like this.

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This week One Hundred For Haiti fully funded two community trainings in the rural regions of Randell and Tiburon in Haiti to raise awareness about the Convention of the Rights of the Child and to engage local people in basic ideas, discussion, and how to take action to prevent violence and sexual assault.

Every one of these trainings this year has resulted in communities setting up their own systems for followup and community self-monitoring.

I’m very thankful for every donor who made this possible. Every little bit really does add up.

In Haiti, thank you to Little Footprints, Big Steps for partnering with us, to IBESR for coordinating these greatly needed activities and to all of the social work partners of the Working Group for Child Protection (GTPE) of which we are a part. We are honored to support these trainings and to be a part of them!

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When Dean Berlinerblau wrote and asked for an interview for his new podcast I had no idea I would be diving into deeeeeeep conversation. Dean asks challenging questions! His Depixelate podcast just came out and I’d recommend listening to him even more than listening to me.

We went for it. Topics covered in the 90+ minutes include self-improvement, the positive manifestation of suffering, politically-charged violence in the West, collectivism and individualism, the importance of civil dialogue, the negative effects of social media and targeted information algorithms, online censorship, free speech, gentrification in Seattle, what to do about inequality, and the meaning and social fabric of the hardcore music scene. WHEW.

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The best of times at Grinnell College in Iowa with vegan straightedge sociology professor Ross Haenfler who put together two full days of speaking and events. Day one had us team teaching sociology classes together about punk/hardcore history and how punk and straightedge relate to larger social issues. Later in the day he arranged a campus-wide speaking event for my “Changing the World Without Having a Clue” presentation.

On the second day we hung out on the couch with his cats and talked for three and a half hours about the wider sociological implications of punk and straightedge for a new book he is working on, and then he arranged for us to meet at night with the campus Intersectional Vegan Group to talk about how veganism connects to other forms of oppression. Great students and even better ideas circulating about how to tie together all sorts of different initiatives.

If you ever go back to college make sure you go to Grinnell and have Ross be your professor. He plays Minor Threat in class.

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For years I’ve been dreaming about writing a spoken word LP. The idea is to have my words appearing with an original musical track from each of the most talented friends I have. I have commitments from seven artists so far.

Today that dream became more of a reality. Tracking an original song with Rocky Votolato near Seattle.

Update 10/22/2017

Spoken word LP audio track #2. Selecting music tracks today in Los Angeles with Joel Jarek DeGraff from his recorded catalog under the name Same Animal. Search spotify and SoundCloud for the Same Animal songs especially my favorites “Broken Glass” and “Escape From Stockholm”.

Fun fact: I met Joel for the first time when I saw him singing for Undertow when I was twenty years old. We later played one show together after he’d left Undertow with his band Saidchild when I filled in on bass for a night scared out of my mind that I would mess up every note of every song.

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Respect to Jake Conroy and friends for putting together and organizing the Seattle Burrito Coalition / All Fired Up Coalition. We wrapped and distributed 100+ burritos today to the homeless population south of the West Seattle Bridge. It was my first time helping out and I was glad I got to be a part of it.

Seattle’s meteoric rise to become a city of, and for, millionaires has had the simultaneous consequence of an explosion in the numbers of homeless people here. I hear lip service paid to the problem all the time with barely anyone – certainly not politicians – doing enough. Politicians will never save us. So a high five to Jake for taking action and actually doing something to offer some level of relief. The people we met were very thankful.

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My friend David M. Russell is smart. And good with words. And despises the president as much as I do. Maybe more. Well said, David:

“Trump has to know the end is near. He is literally setting everything he can on fire.

He just absolutely FUCKED the health insurance market. Neither he nor the GOP ever had a plan, and now the entire market could collapse and we’ll all be paying more until it does.

He’s going to backdoor us out of the Iran nuclear treaty, which betrays our allies and will bring Iran closer to a nuclear weapon.

He’s moving forward on everything he can that pollutes our air, land and water so that coal barons and oil companies can profit.

He’s pushing us hard towards real conflict with North Korea, which would essentially sacrifice the lives of countless thousands of South Koreans.

He’s at war with women in every imaginable way and is working to codify his sexist beliefs.

He’s at war with the LGBTQ community, and he’s working to codify his bigotry.

He’s at war with virtually every non-white population in America — not the least of which is the 3.5 million Americans in Puerto Rico, whom he would very much like to abandon — and he’s working to codify his racism.

He has obstructed justice, in regard to the Russia investigation. A crime. And he admitted it.

He lies to the American public no fewer than 5 times a day on average.

He is in clear violation of the emoluments clause and has been since the moment he was sworn in.

He constantly attacks the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, two of the foundational principles of this nation.

I could go on and on, but do I need to? Not if you follow the unfortunately all-too-real news. He does everything any demagogue in history has done.

He is desperate to undo anything and everything done by America’s first other-than-white President — from the ACA to the bike rack for shared bicycles at the White House — because the Republican Southern Strategy can’t survive if their racist supporters see an other-than-white person succeeding as Obama did, despite the profound and unprecedented irrationality he faced from conservatives.

Trump has to go. Now. And every Republican who refuses to stand up to him and his attempts to turn this great nation, the shining beacon of freedom and democracy, into an authoritarian dictatorship needs to go too.”